An investigation has found that two British couples each made the decision to have a healthy foetus aborted because they were wrongly informed that their offspring would have serious genetic conditions.
The errors by doctors at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust led to them terminating their pregnancies, the couples said.
And a third family said they only changed their minds after a last-minute scan on the day an abortion was scheduled. They are now the parents of a healthy nine-year-old boy, reports The Telegraph.
The trust, currently at the centre of the largest maternity inquiry in the history of the NHS, said it strives to provide “compassionate and professional care”.
Carly Wesson and her partner, Carl Everson, were expecting their first child in January 2019 when a 12-week scan indicated their baby had a fatal foetal chromosomal abnormality that was incompatible with life.
They were offered a prenatal test, known as chorionic villus sampling (CVS), to check for genetic or chromosomal conditions.
They were told by the foetal care team at City Hospital, in Nottingham, that initial results indicated their daughter had a rare genetic condition called Patau’s syndrome, which often results in miscarriage, stillbirth, or the baby dying shortly after birth.
Wesson (43) said that in a conversation shortly afterwards with a foetal care consultant, she was told her baby would have severe care needs and might not survive the pregnancy.
“It’s the most impossible choice we’ve ever had to make. We thought the best option was to end the pregnancy because the baby was suffering,” she said.
Results from a more detailed analysis of the sample were due back two weeks later.
The couple asked if it might show a different outcome, but they say their consultant advised them that it would not. The couple decided to go ahead with an abortion, at 14 weeks.
Six weeks after the abortion, they were asked to attend a meeting at City Hospital.
“(The consultant) just walked in and the first thing she said was, ‘I have got something to tell you. Your results have changed’,” Wesson told the BBC.
The second test, called a long-term CVS culture, showed their daughter, whom the couple had nicknamed Ladybird, had no chromosomal abnormality.
When they asked if their baby would have survived, the doctor told the couple: “Well, you could have miscarried anyway.”
“That’s always stuck with me – it was almost malicious,” she said.
An investigation into the death carried out by the trust said the second test showed “all 50 cells studied had a normal chromosome compliment”.
The first test result, which the couple says was the basis on which they decided to terminate the pregnancy, had been a false positive.
This was “a well-recognised hazard of early CVS results”, the investigation found.
The trust, it concluded, “must take responsibility for an outcome which would not have occurred were it not for a series of deficiencies in care, knowledge and process, all lining up together”.
“Although not absolutely certain, it seems highly probable that the pregnancy was, in fact, chromosomally normal,” it said.
‘We failed’
Anthony May, chief executive at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “I know that we failed Carly, Carl and their baby, and for that I am truly sorry.
“While words will never change the outcome… we have learnt from this tragic case.
“Since 2019, we have implemented … robust processes for checking, communicating and monitoring results.”
Another family, who asked to remain anonymous, ended their pregnancy in 2017 after they too were incorrectly told their baby had a genetic condition.
After a routine 20-week scan found signs of some abnormal development, they were told their baby may have had a life-limiting illness.
Tests were carried out on both parents, because the condition was inherited, to see if they were carriers.
But several weeks passed, without any results, until they received a call from the hospital telling them they had less than 24 hours to decide whether to terminate the pregnancy, as it would be more complicated to carry out later.
At this stage, the pregnancy was just one day under 24 weeks, which is normally the legal limit for abortion.
The couple decided to end the pregnancy, having been advised by doctors that their child might not survive or die shortly after birth, or have a life-limiting condition.
When a post-mortem examination was carried out, the baby was found not to have the condition.
The trust has never provided them with an explanation for the wrong diagnosis, they say.
The mother said she had the termination in the labour ward, surrounded by other mothers giving birth to healthy babies.
A third family almost had an abortion after they were told by the trust’s foetal care team that their unborn baby probably had a life-limiting genetic condition.
They had already experienced a stillbirth when they became pregnant with their son in 2015.
An eight-week scan showed up what looked like “a black hole in the middle”, according to the father.
”We were told our baby wasn’t emptying his bladder, that’s what the big shape was,” recalls his mother. “If he couldn’t empty his bladder, he would either go on to be stillborn or live a very short life.”
The baby, they say they were told, might develop genetic conditions, and they were offered a termination for medical reasons.
They went to the Queen’s Medical Centre to take the medication that would end the pregnancy.
The father, however, requested one final scan “and absolutely crazily, while being scanned, our little baby emptied his bladder. So we didn’t end the pregnancy”.
The parents also say the trust has never given them an explanation about what happened.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust said they could not provide specific answers, as two of the families were speaking anonymously.
An investigation is under way.
The treatment that more than 2 000 families received at the trust’s two hospitals – the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital – is being examined by senior midwife Donna Ockenden, external, who led the review into the maternity care scandal in Shrewsbury and Telford.
The inquiry includes a review of the antenatal care provided by the trust. A separate police investigation is also under way.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
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NHS maternity scandal now expected to exceed 1 500 cases
Ockenden Report into ‘one of the biggest scandals in NHS history’